Pierre Gassendi Built Bridges Between God And Science

Pierre Gassendi was the first to observe and describe the transit of Mercury across the sun in 1631, a rare occurrence that was repeated this past Monday.

In the early seventeenth century, he was seen as one of the most gifted scientists, astronomers and philosophers of his time, yet he was also a Catholic priest.

I find Pierre Gassendi fascinating for his originality of thought and courageous in how he was able to weave his theories of the physical world into the theological concepts of God that never really deviated from his faith.

He was extremely brave to carry on any scientific investigation as a priest since this was shortly after Galileo’s condemnation by the Pope.

When Gassendi saw Mercury transit the sun, on November 7, 1631, on the Pont Neuf, he initially thought it to be a sunspot, because he was expecting the planet to cast a larger shadow, than a small moving dot.

He was also one of the first to break away from Aristotelian philosophy about the natural world, which he found to be overly based on logic.

Aristotle’s syllogistic approach did not allow for the possibility of the unknown or unproven to be a canvas of unwinding the truth.

Pierre Gassendi prefered the scientific theories of the Epicurian philosophy of atomism and tried to revive this philosophy of thought.

Epicurius, circa 307 BC promoted a theory that all matter was composed of solid particles in motion separated by space.

This is the same Epicurius, who by the way,  has been falsely attributed as advocating pure Hedonism. Though his philosophy stated that the pursuit of happiness was the goal of human life, he, in fact, argued that seeking pleasure should be done under the auspices of moderation and simplicity.

Pierre Gassendi tweaked Epicurian atomism in that he believed that it was God who created all elemental particles.  He said atoms had different sizes and shapes and travelled at different rates of speed.

He believed that God set the motion that propelled them along,  colliding with each other and changing the direction that consequently allowed for an ongoing collision that created matter that could be seen and unseen.

In reading some of his ideas, I sensed a preludial budding notion of the big bang theory,  Of course, his concept that the bang was of God’s design in the first place and did not take place as an isolated phenomenon as pure evolutionists proport.

During his time, he also refuted the concept that all truths of the physical world could be explained by mathematics and by Cartesian logic.

Descartes was very popular in France and his rationale for deductive processes as a way to uncover truths was never embraced by Gassendi, who was sceptical of compartmentalising everything as either logical or illogical by mere perception.

Gassendi never believed that our sensory perceptions would allow us to completely understand and define the nature of reality.

He also recognised the limitations in developing truths based on what could be seen by the available sensory enhancing objects of his time.   Things could be seen but phenomena not fully explained.

Again his quest to value that which as is yet unseen, therefore unknown might hold the key path towards truism fits into his awareness that God can not be explained by logic, but by faith.

Pierre Gassendi was a brilliant thinker, visionary and prodigious writer who wrote volumes in Latin to describe and explain his theories, be it on astronomy, philosophy or theology.

His most important work, Syntagma Philosophicum published in 1658 after he died was extremely voluminous written in two columns on 1,600 pages!

It was Gassendi who also in 1621 named the northern lights that he saw when travelling in northern Holland, the Aurora Borealis.    Aurora comes from the Roman goddess of dawn and Borealis from the Greek god of the north wind, Boreas.

Pierre Gassendi was born in the small village of Champtercier located in lower Alpes of Provence into a modest family of farmers in 1592.  He was noted to have been a child prodigy gifted with languages and math.

A bishop was so impressed with his ability to write and cite Latin that he predicted that Pierre Gassendi would bring fame to his region as a jewel of brilliance.

It is said that he became enthralled with celestial bodies while tending to the family’s herd at night.  He remained especially interested in eclipses of the moon and begin to document them in his youth.

He obtained a doctorate of theology at the University of Aix en Provence and was ordained a priest in 1617 at the age of 24.

He held professorships at Aix and alternated maintaining clerical duties with those of his pursuits of scientific studies which lead him to Paris.

His early publications started to being him recognition and he was often invited to circles of great thinkers of his time in Paris.

In 1645 he was appointed as professor of philosophy to the prestigious College de France, where he was a devoted lecturer.

He was said to have been a kind and benevolent man to others, often giving to the poor he encountered on the streets of Paris.

He could diplomatically straddle the two worlds of scientific investigation and faith.  He had empathy for Galileo, defended him and wrote to him offering his support and encouragement.

Despite the scepticism of the church in matters of science that strayed outside official doctrine, Gassendi continued to pursue and write about his studies in both astronomy, philosophy and theology.

Later in his life, he would be threatened with excommunication for some of his writings, but he was able to defend them and stayed on good graces with ecclesiastical hierarchies and the Pope.

In reading about this great man, he was described as pious and humble who lead a simple life insofar as his daily routines.

He was noted not to sleep much, usually arising around 3 or 4 in the early morning and then studying most of the day until an early bedtime.

His diet seemed very spartan, as in a daily fasting mode.  He rarely ate meat, never ate lunch and usually had only herbal tea, occasional bouillon and bread at dinner with maybe some fruit afterwards.

I wonder if his dietary austerity was implemented from his religious beliefs or did he suffer from what we would call an eating disorder today.

Not surprisingly given his limited daily food intake he suffered from chronically poor health.  Doctors often recommended that he return to his natal village to recuperate since the climate was considered healthier than Paris.

I would imagine that he suffered from chronic anaemia due to Vitamin B 12 deficiency from his overly strict vegetarian diet.  This possibility would weaken his immune system making it difficult to fight off infections.

In reading about the treatments he received prior to his death, one could easily surmise that he died from the ill-conceived medical treatments of the day, especially repeated bleedings.

Given the possibility that he probably had chronic low red corpuscles, any bleedings would only diminish haemoglobin and hematocrit level to fatal levels.

During his last days of feeling ill, he pleaded with his doctors not to bleed him anymore, but they sadly continued with these debilitating treatments until his death in 1655 at the age of 63.

If  Gassendi could reappear today, he would be delighted and feel totally at home in the Vatican Observatories in Castelo Gandolfo and Tuscon that were built and flourishes to embrace, encourage and promote astrophysical research to the fullest possible dedication.

Pierre Gassendi believed that the intellectual part of man’s soul belonged to God and was immortal.   God uses a man’s intellectual soul to bring enlightenment to the world.

Certainly, this acclaimed scientist and man of the cloth accomplished exactly what he believed was God’s will for him.  We are all called likewise to use our God given gifts and talents to do the same!